Day 4,079—on the Verge of Late June—

 

          I broke my streak of getting up early today and wasn’t awake until after I left the house yesterday to go running. Once awake, in a surprise move, I deferred my run until after I had written a draft of some homework that had been on my mind. I had to write a summary interpretation for a self-concept assessment that I had administered the week before. My right ankle/foot was bothering me more than it had been before, which I found frustrating because my 100-mile run hadn’t aggravated it, but when I stretched it out earlier in the week, the pain returned to the same acuteness it had been before. How had my body not healed itself yet? It had been months. I decided to attempt running slower and doing less today.

         When I finally started running, it felt hot, and I kept to my intention of running slower. I decided to go up this hill to sit at a pond close to my house, thinking I might want to sit there for a while and breathe. I remembered that there was a tree branch that I had hit with my head before, so I wanted to look out for it this time.

         WACK! It hit me in the head like it had before. I am not sure how I didn’t see it coming even though I had slowed and looked for it, but the whole area that usually is maintained had been left untouched. I found the same problem in the area by the pond where I like to sit. There was shrubbery brushing against my leg, and as I sat there for a moment, I started to get itchy, so I left shortly after. Once home, I decided to take a bath and read, not feeling like finding the energy to do anything but remedial chores today. I had grown frustrated with the summer and annoyed while thinking about what might happen next.